In Sunshine or in Shadow
by Soap and Glory
Summary: Sometimes when I walk along the corridor, I fancy I hear her just behind me. Warning: Character Death.


A/N: **Scarlet Secret:** Our first published collaboration! Ghost AU is one of my absolute favourites and it seems to be the one that people like so here we go! Thanks to my bestie and favouritest RP-partner ever for making all our AUs so amazing. :) **Lady Grantham:** It's about time we started publishing all of these collaborations and I have so much love for Ghost AU and for my wonderful writing partner and braintwin too. You are the needle to my button box, and I don't care how odd that sounds.

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><p>Sarah O'Brien sighed as she closed her bedroom door behind her with force. That bloody <em>woman<em> was getting on her last frayed nerve now and if she demanded to be re-dressed one more time O'Brien was certain she would throttle her with her own stolen pearls!

She was a horrible Countess. Not a Countess at all really, bloody upstart from foreign lands who didn't deserve the honours of the station she had oozed her way into. She felt like crying sometimes - that she should have to all but bow to that _cow _when _her_ lady was...

Her spirits lifted slightly at the sight on her bed. A dress, one that had always been her favourite to dress her former mistress in, was lying quite neatly on the bed. A pretty crimson thing, resplendent with lace and gold threading and soft to the touch and it made her heart ache to look at it left alone. She sighed at the sight and smiled ruefully to the air.

"I only wish I could put it on you m'lady."

"_There _you are."

Cora Crawley stood in the doorway, hands on hips and face demanding an explanation. Really, she had been ringing the bell for hours and here O'Brien was with her red dress draped on her bed – she had never thought O'Brien a thief. Bates, yes, but never O'Brien – and talking to herself, as if she belonged in an asylum!

But then Cora did seem to be having an unusual day herself, finding herself in the attics in a strange, almost diaphanous dress and hair long and free, with utterly no memory of how she'd arrived in the servant's quarters and no reason to be there. Perhaps there was some explanation for O'Brien's entirely out of character behaviour; perhaps she was dreaming?

"Finally O'Brien! I've been waiting for my bath for hours now! Did you not hear me ring the bell?"

She was going to be late for dinner if they didn't hurry, and Carson hated that kind of thing!

For a moment O'Brien felt like she might fall down in a faint, but she had never been that sort of person. She was not the type to come over giddy and need fanning and brandy, but then, exactly what was one's response to having your four and a half months dead mistress suddenly appear in your bedroom as though nothing had happened?

Perhaps she had been dreaming all along? Perhaps that horrible boating accident had never happened and she had not spent the last month tending to a woman who was not fit to fill Daisy's position, let along Cora's?

Maybe...there was a feeling inside her she couldn't define at the thought, but maybe she was dead too now? Perhaps she'd keeled over on the stairs from sheer hatred of her new mistress and Mrs Hughes had found her and bundled her off to the morgue and she was with Cora...wherever Cora was.

"You're...'ere...'ow can you be 'ere?"

The rational part of her brain told her she must be going mad - she was still hoping for the dead option in all honesty - but something in her heart told her this was no madness on her part and it was no dream. Besides which, Cora was wearing something Sarah had never seen before and though she knew her lady liked to buy new things, there was not a cat in hell's chance she'd put it on herself.

"M'lady? Are you," god she felt a right bloody noodle for asking this, she sounded like Daisy, "A ghost?"

"A ghost O'Brien?"

She arched an eyebrow and briefly entertained the idea that perhaps O'Brien was insane after all. A ghost? The idea was ludicrous to say the least, and she could not comprehend how a woman as intelligent and reasonable as her lady's maid was, in all seriousness from the look of incredulity on her face, asking if she was a ghost. Unless this was some elaborate prank – organised by Sybil no doubt – and she had managed to recruit the entire household. That would explain why O'Brien was the first soul she had encountered since she had left the attics, and why nobody had answered the bell; they must be hiding, surely. But it didn't explain the dress, or the attics, or the tightness in her chest that had always served to tell her that something was not quite right. She laughed to rid herself of the uncomfortable confusion, her eyes glittering in semi-forced mirth as they met O'Brien's across the little room.

"To be a ghost, I'd have to be dead."

And that was entirely impossible. Cora was certain she would remember a moment as monumental as her own death, however it occurred. But something fluttered in her stomach, a terrible, sinking feeling, and she shifted in trepidation. O'Brien looked positively stricken by her presence, her face pale and infused with disbelief. She had never seen her maid look anything other than utterly unflappable before but now... O'Brien's silence, and the terrible look on her face, spoke volumes, and when Cora finally spoke again her voice emerged smaller than before and fraught with a niggling doubt.

"O'Brien?"

How could Cora not remember? Her being a ghost was ludicrous, it was utterly absurd and completely impossible and yet...and yet it was the only explanation that made any sort of sense. Cora was dead and was somehow standing in front of her as though it had never happened. For some reason, her poor mistress was here again, in this stupid bloody house, and she did not remember her own death.

Sarah sighed. It was bloody typical that even in death Cora required her to do everything for her but telling her about her own death seemed a bit above and beyond the call of duty.

"M'lady, do you not remember the accident? On the boat with his lordship? You hit your...'ead an', well, died."

Sarah stared at the head in question. The last time she had seen Cora, had seen her mistresses face, it had been nothing like her. The beam had all but smashed her face in and when his lordship had finally managed to navigate the boat back Sarah had been one of the first to get to them.

It had been a sight she thought she'd never be rid of, but somehow Cora was here, beautiful as ever and without a hint that any injury had ever befallen her.

Cora remembered the boat. She remembered sunshine, flowers and a breeze, and Robert navigating them away from the shore, land slipping further and further from sight as she lounged on the deck and soaked all of it in, and composed a letter to her sister-in-law. But she remembered no accident, no head injury...nothing but the glorious sun and then Downton, and the attics and her strange ethereal dress.

But, as hard as she tried to silence it, a voice at the back of her mind screamed at her that something was not right; not one bit of this made sense and the only thing she knew for certain – the one thing she knew she could always rely on – was that Sarah O'Brien had never lied to her, not once in eleven years, and why would she start now and why this? It was much too cruel to be a practical joke, and the piercing, heartbreaking sincerity in the maid's eyes ruled that possibility out completely. O'Brien had never lied to her and now she was telling her she had died.

But it was utterly conceivable. She was forty-five years old, a mother of three, a wife. She had a life and a home and she simply couldn't be dead. She was standing right here, flesh and blood, in front of her lady's maid with a beating heart and a pulse and life flowing through her veins.

Her voice was nothing more than a tentative whisper when she finally managed to speak. "But I'm alive O'Brien, I don't remember an accident. I...I don't understand."

Sarah felt her heart break in that moment once more. It had cracked forever the moment she had held Cora briefly in her arms after the return to shore, before his lordship had pulled her away; to see her beautiful, beautiful mistress breathing her last through bloodied lips... It had been unbearable but Sarah had refused to leave her until the last moment, all the while his lordship had been fannying about getting someone to send for the Doctor, but Sarah had known it was too late. The injuries were too great and she'd wanted to shout at him to at least have the decency to comfort his dying wife, but the words died in her throat - she'd wanted to be there herself. It was selfish, Cora had probably wanted her husband after all, but he was useless and she'd been there and she'd loved her...

And now the small little voice as Cora realised what had happened, even if the details still eluded her, Sarah thought she was starting to remember the basics, was utterly breaking her heart. And the worst of it was that she could do nothing to make any of this better. She couldn't bring her back, couldn't kill his lordship's new wife - as much as she would have liked to - couldn't make everyone realise that Cora was still here and still loved them all more than they deserved.

She took a tentative step forwards, getting ever closer to Cora, rather astounded that when meeting what _must _be a ghost she was not remotely frightened. She didn't know whether the panicking would come later or whether it was just impossible for her to be scared of Cora. How could she be?

"M'lady? I don't really understand it neither, but...you're here. And you're," she examined Cora's dress, thinking that whoever had dressed her, be it God or whoever else was up there and in charge of ghosts, was really trying to hammer home the point weren't they? "I think you're a ghost."

Even as she opened her mouth to refute the absurdity of the conclusion her maid had reached, how she was alive and the Countess of Grantham and how dare O'Brien try to trick her, her heart told her, inexplicably filled with knowledge and sinking realization, that it was true. Cora could remember nothing of the supposed accident – no pain, no terror, nor the last of her life ebbing from her broken body, but something inside her knew she had died on that boat, and now she was here. It made no logical sense but she believed it, breaking lifeless heart and all. She had been so sure she could feel her heart beating inside of her chest before, but there was nothing. She could feel that now.

Pain welled in Cora' chest – she thought it extraordinary she could still feel grief like this – and she fought to keep it down, even as tears pricked at her eyes. She was dead, a ghost, and though her children were women now they would live the rest of their lives without a mother, and Robert without his wife. She loved them all with all of her heart but they would move on with their lives – they _should _move on with their lives…but what would happen to her? The thought sent pain shooting through her and Cora immediately, unconsciously reached for the other woman's hand. She needed contact and comfort, something human and warm to make her feel alive, even if she wasn't.

Her hand passed right through O'Brien's.

For a long moment she simply stared, shocked into wide-eyed silence, as her hand hovered through the other woman's. If she had doubted what she was before, and oh god she wanted to believe this was nothing but a dream, she could deny it no longer. It was alarming, grotesque and utterly undeniable proof of everything she already knew.

Cora swallowed, and let her hand drop dejectedly to her own side. She licked dry lips that probably weren't even dry – an illusion conjured up by her desperation to ignore the truth most likely – and blinked back equally dubious tears.

"How long…have I been dead, O'Brien?"

Sarah stared, eyes filled with brimming tears, at her hand. She had at least expected Cora's hand to feel cold as it passed seamlessly through hers – some icy blast or at least a chill, but instead it simply went straight through and if she hadn't been looking she wouldn't have felt it. The thought made her uncontrollably sad. The idea that Cora could have been here, unable to communicate or touch anyone was horrible. Her poor ladyship would have wondered around the house, not knowing why she was being ignored and when she realised she couldn't touch anyone…would she have realised? Would she have remembered the boat? The waves crashing against the side – it had not been a good day for sailing, no matter what his lordship had insisted upon – the smell of the air, the rocking that even from the shore had looked dangerous. She might never have recalled the accident. The moment the mast had swung so swiftly and decisively towards the pair on the boat and Robert had ducked, unable to pull his wife down with him and instead helpless as it crashed into her with such force. Sarah had felt her heart stop dead in the same way it had when Cora had swept into her room minutes before.

She clenched her fist around the air and let her hand fall listlessly to her side, wishing for all she was worth that she could touch her. Somehow it seemed like everything would be made better if only she could hold Cora's hand – such a simple act that was now denied them. She could still feel the ghost of Cora's touch from the moment on the boat, before his lordship had dragged them both away, waiting for the Doctor that could do no good. The memory of that touch couldn't possibly sustain her now.

"It's been months m'lady…" she was unable to look away from Cora's eyes. Despite the agony of seeing Cora's despair she felt as though she owed it to her ladyship to look her in the eye, to be her link to the world. "Four and a half months since the accident."

She thought suddenly about the rest. The things Cora couldn't possibly know yet but needed to. She would find out one way or another and perhaps it was kinder not to drag it out. But oh god it was selfish of her! She didn't think she could cope with verbally comforting Cora over both things and it seemed infinitely easier to just tell her here and now and get it over with.

"And two months since," she took a deep, steadying breath, battling with tears and unable to stop her voice cracking slightly. "Since his lordship remarried."

"Two months since-"

Cora cut herself off.

It wasn't possible. Robert would never remarry, not two months after losing her, if he remarried at all. Robert had loved her, fiercely and passionately, even after that first minor hiccup of a year when he had felt nothing for her at all. But he'd moved past that. They'd shared a life and a home and even a bed, almost every night; they'd had three exquisite daughters that they'd loved...that she still loved, and, god help her, she still loved him, and he'd married somebody else within two months of her death.

Perhaps he had never loved her the way she had loved him. Cora would have done anything, given anything to love him – she'd signed over everything she'd possessed in the hopes he'd look at her the way she'd looked at him from the very first moment her eyes had found his across the ballroom, but she had never given him the one thing he had truly wanted, needed, from her. She'd been three times a disappointment. Her death might have been a relief to Robert – out with the old and in with the new, somebody younger she supposed – some young, pretty little English aristocrat who his mother approved of – somebody who could give him a son.

Cora felt a splash of moisture on her cheeks and realised she was crying in front of O'Brien. She brought up her hand to brush the tears away, blinking back those that had not yet fallen. She felt lost and utterly pathetic needing her poor maid to tell her she was dead and had been swiftly replaced, as well as the swell of raw, unbearable grief slicing through her and shattering her fragile composure. And she couldn't even hold O'Brien's hand. She supposed as a ghost she really had no need of physical contact, but she needed it in this moment more than she ever had when she was alive.

She opened her mouth to speak in a pained and hoarsely breathless whisper.

"Are they...trying for a child, O'Brien?"

Of course they were. Sarah didn't doubt that the first thing that had flown through his lordship's head when she realised his wife was dead was that now he was free; free to remarry and finally obtain the much desired son. Sarah had never thought him the brightest but she wanted to bash him over the head with something large and heavy these days. How could this man be such an idiot that he didn't realise, son be damned, he had been loved by - was still loved by the look of things - by the most wonderful woman he could possibly have found. Cora was perfect and Sarah would have gladly walked over hot coals for her had she need asked and didn't fully understand how other's could not feel the same way when faced with such a fragile, beautiful creature.

In this moment she had never been more beautiful to Sarah's eyes. The silent tears ran down her porcelain cheek - Sarah had a feeling that her own face would probably be red and puffy by the end of this - and the despair in her eyes crushed Sarah's heart. She wanted so much to touch her, to hold her and make it all go away. God help her if she could she'd exorcise Cora from this house immediately to save her the pain.

"They're trying m'lady, but with his lordship's track record I wouldn't say it was a done thing."

Sarah let out a derisive gasp of laughter, still choking back the tears that she could scarcely control.

"I wouldn't put it past her to try it on with any man though. If it means she gets pregnant."

Sarah knew she was not alone in this thought. She and Mrs Hughes had managed to grab a few moments of hushed whispers to share their thoughts. It was the only thing that was safe these days. Some of the staff could rest easy in their beds - the new mistress had little care for scullery maids and valets, but three women who had seen the previous Countess the most were not so content. Hughes and Patmore were still concerned. Their attempts to do most things the way that Cora had liked them didn't always go down well with the new Countess and Sarah was on the shakiest ground of all. It was something of a miracle she had not been kicked out months ago and to be caught gossiping would be the final nail on both her and Mrs Hughes' careers.

Cora wanted to laugh. The bitter, derisive little dig against a woman she didn't know but utterly hated almost did it; she felt a bubble of laughter gather in her throat, as well as a swell of emotion for the woman stood beside her, whose loyalty she still had, unequivocally. O'Brien was still hers, even if Robert wasn't, and she wanted to crush the other woman to her and hold on tight and never let go of her last link to the life she scarcely even remembered losing. If she could just touch her maybe this nightmare would not seem quite so bad.

But the momentary mirth was soon swallowed back down by the pain that seemed to be crushing her chest, and smothered by the muffled little sob that escaped unbidden. The thought of her husband, her Robert, sharing a bed with another woman – conceiving a child with another woman – was impossible to bear, and seemed even harder to accept than her own death. Death was inevitable. If she hadn't died four months ago (four months ago, and she couldn't remember a thing) it would have happened someday, perhaps as an old woman, warm in her bed. But Cora had never imagined Robert could ever love somebody else as he had loved her.

And now what was to become of her? Doomed to haunt this beautiful house forever, to watch her husband love another, and her girl's grow into women – marry, run households, bear children – without her. All without her, while she stood by as a silent spectator. Cora could imagine nothing worse; even hell seemed a comfort when faced with this torment. She wondered if anybody even remembered there had been a Countess named Cora.

She turned back to O'Brien, chest tight and sore, desperate for news about her girls. They couldn't have forgotten her, least of all sweet, loving Sybil. Even Mary must have grieved for her mother, as unfeeling as she often pretended to be, and Edith…Edith must have known how much her mother loved her.

"O'Brien, the girls-"

The words froze on her lips as Cora noticed the sheen over O'Brien's eyes, the colour in her cheeks and the defiant clench of her jaw. She had detected the wobbling of her voice of course – every sense seemed somehow heightened now – but she had thought nothing of it, other than her maid was probably terrified at having her four-month dead mistress turn up in her doorway demanding to know why she hadn't answered the bell.

She wanted to take her hand more than ever now.

Cora shuffled closer, as close as she could without going through the other woman, and spoke in the softest and steadiest voice she could manage.

"O'Brien, you're crying."

"Course I'm bloody crying! You're dead an' I 'ave to wait on that...woman..."

Sarah bit her lip. She had never spoken like that in front of Cora and somewhere in the back of her mind she still felt it was unacceptable to do so. The woman was nearly five months dead and Sarah still held opinion greater than anyone living and the thought of Cora thinking badly of her was terrible.

She swiped at her eyes for something to do. She couldn't touch Cora and the thought was horrifying but the warm tears coming from her own eyes seared through her skin and her fingers tingled as though they had been touched; and try as she might she couldn't force herself to acknowledge the simple truth that it was all in her head.

"She's terrible m'lady. Doesn't know the first thing about being a proper lady. She doesn't know 'ow to dress, 'ow to talk, she calls me Sarah an' the girls..."

She had noticed the understandable quiver in Cora's voice when she had mentioned her daughters and clung onto it. Anything to direct the attention away from her own pointless emotions. Cora was only here because she was lost. No doubt she'd swan off upstairs and his lordship would see her and there'd be uproar and she'd be stuck down in the kitchen. Maybe she'd be turfed out with the new Lady Grantham - it was almost worth it for that.

"They miss you so much m'lady. Lady Mary's getting married to Mr Crawley and she's living in Crawley House with them already. Says she can't stand to see that woman in your seat at dinner. Lady Sybil still cries. Me an' Mrs Hughes have caught her a few times each and she's not one for hiding her tears, not like...well, Lady Edith's trying so hard to be strong."

She wondered whether it would be worth taking Cora upstairs to their rooms - maybe later on when they were sure to be fast asleep? Cora would want to see her girls more than anything in the world no doubt and Sarah would make sure she got what she wanted.

"They miss you. We all...I've missed you."

Cora wanted to say it back, but she couldn't. It had been a matter of hours to her, a day at most, and what had been four and a half months for them had been the equivalent to a night's sleep for her. Her chest burned raw. Each new piece of information Sarah gave her struck a deeper nerve – Mary was marrying Matthew, she had finally accepted him! And she hadn't been there to hold her hand or kiss or cheek, or wrap her arms around her in congratulations. Would she even witness the happiest day of her daughter's life? The idea of a ghost attending a wedding was laughable. And Sybil and Edith, her poor beautiful girls – who would chaperone Sybil now? Who would take care of Edith? That woman? Pain sliced through her in a crippling wave, and Cora gave in, finally, to the tears she had been fighting since O'Brien had first confirmed the awful truth.

She let out a sob, stifling the sound behind a hand that shook and squeezed her eyes shut, tight. She returned to her original belief in a pitiful attempt at self-delusion, that this was all a terrible, terrible dream, and if she kept her eyes closed for long enough she'd wake up, alive and safe with Robert's arms around her. The delusion lasted ten seconds at best before another sob broke free as the reality forced itself back to the forefront of her mind.

She wanted to see the girls.

If she could only see them and tell them she was alright, that she might be dead but she was still here and loved them more than she could say, she might be able to live with her dead, and make peace with forever haunting Downton Abbey. She wanted to see Robert too, but couldn't bear it, not yet. The thought of her husband stung most of all, and Cora suspected she'd fall apart at the first glimpse of the new wife she refused to think of as Lady Grantham. She had a sudden thought and raised her eyes hesitantly to meet O'Brien's watchful gaze. She made no attempt to disguise the tears running down her cheeks; O'Brien knew her better than that, perhaps better than anyone.

"The Dowager Countess…my mother-in-law…is she terribly glad I'm gone?"

Sarah had to fight the urge to laugh. It was hysterical; she knew that much, but the force of it was quite staggering. How perfectly like Cora to worry what someone else though. Someone whose opinion Sarah knew she had valued no matter what people might have thought. But it was Cora's desperation that stopped her. Cora seemed to Sarah to be clutching to one of the last bastions on her life, expecting her caustic mother-in-law to be delighted, but Sarah, for once, was pleased to be able to disappoint her.

"She won't come to the 'ouse neither. Not much anyway. Not anymore."

Sarah wanted to take her hand more than anything. The sheer loneliness of this poor woman cut her heart, however, for the first time her desire wasn't to comfort, but she wanted to take Cora's hand in friendship. Wanted to share with her the titbit of information about the Dowager with the same ease and excitement that Cora used to have after she'd been told a particularly piece of scandalous gossip and told Sarah as she was being undressed.

Instead Sarah did something that would later make her wonder at herself. She must be mad really, absolutely bleeding insane and she needed to be put away somewhere even if it felt like something quite natural to do.

She reached up and started taking the pins out of her hair. The first thing she did when she was getting ready for bed.

She had reached a point of matter-of-fact calm - Cora was a ghost and she was here and Sarah needed to get ready for bed. All of these things were true and it seemed quite reasonable that they should happen at the same time.

"You remember 'ow many times a week she used to come up? An' you used to joke an' wonder what you'd done to irritate 'er today? Well I think we can safely say that if she hadn't liked you she wouldn't 'ave come at all."

Sarah caught Cora's eyes, focussing on the white, the pupil, the long eyelashes, the dazzling blue, rather than the tears she could do nothing about.

"She sends for me sometimes though. Says she needs somethin' doin' then 'as me sit down to tea with 'er..." a small smile came to her face, inescapably tinged with sadness. "She loved you m'lady."

Loved her? There were so many other words Cora might have chosen to describe how her mother-in-law had felt about her, or at least how she had believed Violet Crawley had felt about her. Their relationship had never been hateful but it had not been loving either, but the honesty in Sarah's eyes and voice broke the dam yet again and she stifled another sob behind a hand that had not stopped trembling since she'd stumbled upon the truth. Violet Crawley had loved her, heir or not, and it had taken death to make her see she had always loved her too. But Violet would never know that now, would she? Her daughter-in-law was dead and as far as the Dowager Countess knew, Cora had remained antagonistic to the very end. Still, it was comforting to know Violet had Sarah now, just as she did. It was an unexpected development, a friendship of sorts between her mother-in-law and her maid, but somehow it made perfect sense. God help the new wife, the one she still refused to call Lady Grantham, with these two women united against her.

Cora wrapped her arms around herself, ghosting her finger tips over the gauzy material of her sleeves, and lowered herself to sit on the edge of Sarah's bed, and watched with thinly disguised curiosity as Sarah undressed herself and loosened her hair. In ten years she'd watched those same hands and fingers fly over her own clothes and remove them with faultless efficiency, but she had never seen Sarah undress before. She supposed she should be a little more outraged at the assumed familiarity – the old Lady Grantham, the live one, would have been – but it was no more absurd than this entire situation, and this Cora, suspended in the afterlife and facing an eternity of near-isolation, embraced it and felt a swell of affection for the woman so happily involving her in her daily routine.

Something else occurred to her though, someone, and the name caused her heart to tighten like a vice. If her voice had faltered before, it damn near cracked now, and she took in a breath to steady herself before she spoke.

"And…Rosamund? How did Rosamund take it?"

"Well," Sarah smirked slightly as she dropped her pins onto the top of her chest of drawers neatly and began to fiddle with buttons. "Let's just say 'is lordship's boat never saw another summer!"

She glanced at Cora and sobered and sighed as she crossed the room and sat down on the bed next to where Cora was perched. She managed to convince herself that the sink in the bed was from both of them and Cora's imprint on the world was still physical. The idea that she only existed in Sarah's head, and the memories of all the people that had loved her, simply wasn't enough.

She reached for a pillow and clung to it in her arms, resting her head on it with a tired sigh and squeezing the cotton-clad thing in Cora's place. It wasn't nearly soft enough to be a replacement and Sarah stared at Cora's arms, wondering if either of them could ever convince themselves that they weren't both alone.

"She's not been the same. After you...well, she's not welcome 'ere as far as 'er majesties concerned but she still pushes 'er way in for the girls' sakes. But then again, she can afford to can't she? If I could..."

She met Cora's eye fiercely and implored her to believe her.

"Most of us are only still 'ere because we need to eat an' she was a bit funny about references when Anna thought about movin' on."

Something in Sarah's voice told Cora that wasn't the only reason she was still here; her face when she had entered like she had risen from the grave had spoke volumes, and Cora blinked back the sudden moisture in her eyes. She even managed something that might have been a smile had she not been so desperately despondent.

"I believe you, O'Brien."

Her arm came up and she almost reached for Sarah's hand, but her arm soon fell back to her side. Her breath hitched and she looked back to her lap, closing her eyes for a moment to pull herself back together. That she couldn't touch her, touch anyone, was a plain, unavoidable fact, and she would simply have to get used to it – the sooner the better. At least Sarah could see her, though it was little consolation really.

Cora looked back to Sarah, watching as she readied herself for sleep, and she wondered whether she would ever do the same. Did ghosts sleep? Her grief turned momentarily to a sort of scientific curiosity as she closed her eyes experimentally. But there was nothing but darkness, an empty void of blackness that made Cora's blood run cold, and her eyes snapped immediately open. Sickness pooled in her stomach as she clutched at the bed sheets beneath her; if she closed her eyes and went to sleep – if indeed she could sleep – would she ever wake up? And if she did…would she be here, with Sarah?

She peered down at Sarah imploringly.

"You won't leave me now will you?"

Sarah stood up with a soft sigh and replaced the pillow, trying not to look at Cora too much but not wanting her to feel ignored. It was impossible really, how were they supposed to cope like this, with Cora untouchable and both trapped in this damned house.

She pulled at the buttons of her dress pointedly, managing to get the top half off before she felt her silence had gone on for far too long. Turning back to Cora she was pleased to see her not inexplicably squeezing her eyes shut again.

"M'lady, if I didn't leave before, when we thought you were gone, I'm 'ardly going to leave now you've come back to..." 'Me', she thought, unable to prevent it from coming into her head even if she caught herself in time not to say it out loud. "Us."

She pushed her dress away from her hips, letting it fall to the floor before she picked it up and neatly folded it over the back of the chair. Normally she did have a tendency to kick her dress away - especially when it was one that was due for washing - but tonight she used the time to try and control her shaking body. How was she being so calm? Cora was dead and now she was here and she was just carrying on as usual, getting undressed in front of her employer... She finally looked down, as though realising what she was doing and brought her hands up self-consciously.

"I'm sorry! I didn't think m'lady."

She looked up, meeting Cora's eyes for the first time since she had stood up.

"I won't leave you. Not now, not ever."

Cora breathed in and tried her hardest not to cry, but her attempts to hold back her tears were futile in the face of the absurd amount of kindness and care Sarah was showing her. These didn't feel like tears of despondency though, and the tightness in her chest wasn't grief for once. Out of the ashes of this miserable situation had risen something else, something that gave her hope, no matter how flimsy it was, and she held onto it with all the desperation she'd hold onto Sarah's hand if she only could. For a moment it didn't seem so bad that her physical presence was somewhat more limited than it had been.

Sarah was here and she always would be.

"I'll assume you don't mind me haunting you then?"

Cora managed to crack a smile, only this time she meant it, and the humour behind her voice was genuine. The laughter didn't reach her eyes, but that would take time yet; it was progress, no matter how small. Her smile widened at the flush staining Sarah's cheeks and she actually felt a giggle bubble up in her chest.

"Dear O'Brien, I'm afraid you and I are going to have to get more used to one another if we're going to be sharing a room."

It hadn't occurred to her to ask the other woman if she could make use of her bedroom, but, she thought with a stab of pain in her heart, she had nowhere else to go. Her room was no longer her room, and the rest of the house…it didn't belong to her anymore. Her claim to Downton had been severed the moment her boat foundered. But this room seemed different somehow, it felt like Sarah, and Sarah was all that she really had left.

Without waiting for an answer, she pulled her legs up onto the bed and crawled across the sheets until her head hit the pillow beside the one Sarah had been fiddling with. She curled up, pulling the sheet to drape over her body, and the comfort the bed offered, though not as soft as her old bed had been, felt so real that she wanted to drown in it. She had no intention of sleeping – she didn't think she could if she tried – but just lying here, like nothing had changed, made her feel momentarily alive.

She peered up at Sarah, fluffing the pillow beneath her just like she had always done, and offered her a tentative smile.

"Are you going to join me?"

Sarah boggled at her mistress and felt suddenly giddy inside. Everything was so wrong and there seemed to be no reprieve for either of them now, somehow they would have to cope with their new situation and at least they were together to do it. Sarah still wasn't entirely convinced that she wouldn't wake up tomorrow to discover she had collapsed half-way through dinner and this had all been a dream.

Or maybe she'd get really lucky and the nightmare of the last few months would all be taken back and she'd wake up to be told Cora had been asking after her and was already frustrated with being looked after by housemaids?

A haunting was the best she could hope for now. She reached down to fiddle with the clasps of her corset - Cora was in her bed, no, a the ghost of Cora was in her bed so getting undressed didn't seem like half the travesty it had only moments before - and dropped the article on top of her dress.

"Are you sure? I don't mind finding somewhere else..."

Her actions belied her words though and Sarah came towards the bed slowly, as though in a far-off dream, and sat down on the edge, turning her body towards Cora. The sheets had moved over Cora as though she were still entirely corporeal and yet...if anyone else was to come into the room would they see nothing but an unusual shape in Sarah's bed? No one had seen Cora so far so there was no reason to think that she might have suddenly become visible.

"You know you can stay with me forever m'lady."

It might come down to that, Cora thought to herself, though it didn't make her quite as miserable as it should have done. Her husband was married, her children believed her to be thoroughly gone, but O'Brien was still here, lying beside her as she never had when she'd been alive. She could see her, she could hear her, and most importantly of all she cared for her.

For a moment, scarcely five seconds really, her smile reached her eyes. She outstretched her arm, letting her fingers creep across the mattress until they reached Sarah's, and pressed them down against the bed sheets. Their skin was so close to touching, so close Cora could almost feel Sarah's fingers against her own. It was an illusion conjured up by her desperation to feel the impossible, but it was wonderful all the same.

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

And strangely enough, in this moment it was true. She curled into a ball on her side, looking up from their hands to Sarah's face. The other woman looked curiously softer than she ever had before in the half-light of her room, with her hair hanging round her face and her eyes full of so much tenderness. But then Cora had never seen her ready for bed before, and she'd never seen her so...broken by circumstance.

Had she really meant so much to her?

"Lie down, O'Brien," she whispered, inching her fingers just that little bit closer.

Sarah stared at her fingers, willing herself to have the strength to reach out further and touch Cora, wishing for anything that would give her to power to do so. But it would never be, she would have to content herself with getting Cora in mind and spirit, if not in body.

She decided then and there that as hard as it may be in the long run, it was worth it. She smiled at Cora.

"If you say so m'lady," she pulled herself up onto the bed and slipped under the sheet. It seemed ridiculous that she would be able to touch Cora despite being so close she swore she could feel Cora's breath on her shoulder and her heartbeat still fighting to be heard, still pumping away, regardless of everything that shouted the truth and that Cora was dead.

She slid further down the bed and turned on her side, gazing up at her former mistress and cataloguing every line of her face noting with some comfort that everything was exactly as it had been. The same bright blue eyes, wider than anyone's had any right to be, the same lost look, the same upturned lips, same hair, same warmth. Perhaps this was a dream? Surely death must change someone?

"Do you think you'll be able to sleep? Can you...I mean...do you need me to stay awake with you?"

Cora shook her head, curling up beside Sarah with her heart pounding as it had no business to. Of all the places she'd imagined sleeping, in life as well as death, her maid's bed had been the last to come to mind, but being here now, somehow feeling the warmth of Sarah's body on her skin, she couldn't think of anywhere else she'd rather be.

"Don't be silly, O'Brien. You wouldn't be able to keep your eyes open if you tried."

She tugged the sheets over the both of them, draping them over her lifeless body and Sarah's warm, live one. The bed wasn't quite as comfy as the one she was used to, but then that wasn't her bed anymore, and surely it didn't matter what kind of mattress she slept on. Could ghosts get a bad back? And anyway, just as she couldn't think of a place she'd rather be, she couldn't think of a person she'd rather be with, even with her husband living and breathing somewhere in this house.

She inched her fingers that little bit closer to Sarah's, not daring to try and touch her again, and gave her a little smile. "Go to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."

She hoped.

Sarah couldn't help but think the same thing. But if this was a dream and she was to wake to find Cora gone then at least there was the possibility that she would have it again. And if she was dead and didn't know it at least she was with Cora.

She didn't deserve anything of her at all. She'd sworn to protect Cora years ago so perhaps it was her penance in death to be with Cora? Not for her to carry chains, but to continue carrying her guilt in the face of this woman's unending fondness.

"I'm sure you will be m'lady. An' if not I'll find you."

She closed her eyes, unwilling to turn her head away from Cora and feeling the tiredness of the day and the shock begin to take her over. She should sleep. Daisy would be banging on the door in a scarce few hours and goodness knew her body was willing her to do so, but her heart wouldn't allow her to leave Cora just yet.

"Wherever you might be."

Oddly enough, Cora believed her. It didn't matter that finding her might be impossible – because how was one supposed to find a single dead person among the entirety of the afterlife? How would she even start? – Sarah O'Brien had said she'd find her and she would. Whether it took another four months or an eternity.

She pressed her head against the pillow, too scared to get too close less she go straight through the other woman. The sensation had been unpleasant enough last time, and that had only been their hands; she dreaded to think how uncomfortable it would be for her whole body to pass through someone else's, never mind how real it would make things, and with Sarah going to sleep and leaving her entirely to her own thoughts she preferred to think about her 'predicament' as little as possible. Perhaps she could count sheep?

"I know you will, O'Brien. "But I'm not going anywhere again. Not without you."

She smiled softly, watching as Sarah closed her eyes. She could practically see her fading before her eyes, and it wouldn't be long before she was fast asleep, no matter how hard she tried to stay away for her benefit. Sarah had always been far too concerned about her mistress' wellbeing at the cost of her own, and though she didn't have a clue how she could help, being a ghost and all, Cora was determined to make life as easy for the other woman as possible.

It was O'Brien's turn to be looked after now.

She was dead after all.

* * *

><p>Chapter two coming soon!<p> 


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